Frank Lampard can turn Everton draws into wins with unexpected mini pre-season
Everton have had a strange start to their Premier League campaign this year, but they could be set to get a big chance to make it a really good one.
After losing the first two games of the season against Chelsea and Aston Villa, Everton have drawn the next four league games against Nottingham Forest, Brentford, Leeds and Liverpool to sit in 16th place as we stand.
But despite being winless in the first six games, there is a good feeling around Goodison Park about how the season is going currently.
Now after Her Majesty’s death on Thursday, there is set to be an unexpected break in Premier League action with this weekend’s games already postponed a new expectation that next weekend’s game will also be postponed for the funeral.
With a two week international break to follow, there is set to be no Premier League football until the first weekend of October, which gives Lampard a great chance to address problems within the squad.
Defensively the team haven’t been bad and the arrivals of Conor Coady and James Tarkowski in particular have aided that. But the losses of Mason Holgate, Yerry Mina and Ben Godfrey to injury heaped lots of pressure on them.
Add to that the fitness issues of Jordan Pickford, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Lampard has been forced to make things work on the fly with things like Anthony Gordon playing as a striker and Alex Iwobi being used in central midfield.
But with almost a month without football, there is an opportunity to nurse those players back to full health and give the manager options.
However on top of that, there is a great chance to work on the little issues that Lampard has been trying to fix to get the team scoring more goals and being stronger at the back to turn those draws into wins.
The postponements are undoubtedly not ideal considering the effect they’ll have on the season later down the line, but for now they could prove to be a little blessing in disguise for Lampard and the Toffees to turn a decent start into a really good one.